Valentine's Day Crafts for All Ages

Boxes of candy. Flowers and jewelry. Romantic dinners. These are the gifts most women, and some men, expect on Valentine's Day. However, our children have somewhat lower expectations. They're usually ecstatic if they receive a store bought Valentine's Day card and some conversation hearts from their friends at school. This year why not raise your child's (and their friends) expectations and encourage him or her to create their own unique Valentine's Day cards and gifts?

Easy Valentine's Day Cards

These cards are an exceptionally easy Valentine's Day craft for children of all ages to create. In addition, you may have many of the items around your house so it also keeps it low cost.

What You'll Need:

- 3.5" x 5" index cards, preferably in a variety of colors with one lined side and one blank side

- construction paper that matches/contrasts with the index cards

- crayons or markers

- stickers

- double sided tape or pop dots

- safety scissors, if the child is younger than 4 you may want to handle the scissors yourself

- a list of your child's classmates

Depending on the age of your child, you can either write out a Valentine's Day message on the lined side or have your child do it him or herself. Make sure that the classmate's name is at the top and your child's name is signed at the bottom.

Once the messages have been written out, your child can decorate the blank side by coloring hearts or silly pictures. He or she may also want to cut out hearts or other shapes from the construction paper and tape them to the front of the index cards.

If your child is stuck on how to decorate the front of the card, an easy way to kickstart his or her creativity is to give him or her a theme to work with, i.e. fingerprint hearts, flowers and dots, stick figures holding hands, etc.

You may even want to draw a shape (like a heart, star, circle, figure eight, etc) on each index card and have your child use his or her imagination to make a picture out of the shape.

Another way to get them started is to use the first letter of each recipients name on the front as the focal point and to color that and draw around it.

Hearts and Beads Valentine's Decorations

This is, again, an easy Valentine's Day craft for small fingers to create. Most of the items used in this craft can be found at a large superstore or at your local craft store and should be low cost.

What You'll Need:

- pipecleaners in red, white, pink (or whatever color your child prefers)

- small, medium and large tri-beads, preferably non-toxic plastic, in a contrasting color to the pipecleaners

- ¼" ribbon in a matching color

- safety scissors

Make a bend in the end of a pipe cleaner and have your child start sliding the tri-beads on. Try to have your child vary the color and size of the beads.

Once the pipe cleaner is about ¾ strung, you or your child may bend the pipe cleaner into a heart shape and twist the two ends together to secure the beads into place.

Cut the matching ribbon into your preferred length and tie it to the center of the heart. You can either make a bow at this point or clip it close to the heart so there is not "tail" visible.

You can tie the heart to the curtain rod in your living room so that is shows through the window, add it to a Valentine's Day card through a hole punched in the corner of the card, or even add it to your daughter's pony tail as a special Valentine's Day decoration.

Silver Heart Valentine's Day Gift

This is a slightly more involved Valentine's Day craft but beautiful when finished.

What You'll Need:

- red construction paper

- white or black card stock

- aluminum foil

- safety scissors

- glue stick or double sided tape

Fold the red construction paper in half lengthwise. Draw a half heart on one side. Have your child, or yourself it the child is under 4, cut the heart out.

With the heart still folded, draw a design to cut out, i.e. another heart, waves, flowers, birds, etc. Cut out the design and then open up the heart.

Cut a piece of aluminum foil slightly larger than the heart. Have your child glue or tape the heart onto the foil then cut the excess foil from around the edges of the heart.

Once the excess foil is cut off, glue the heart down onto the card stock. For extra decoration, use pinking shears to cut the edges of the card stock or have your child use markers and crayons to draw more hearts and flowers. The resulting masterpiece can be hung on the wall or given to a teacher as a Valentine's Day gift.

Valentine's Day crafts are not only fun and easy for your child to make but also a great way to show them that Valentine's Day is not always about expensive gifts. So, raise your child's gift giving expectations this Valentine's Day and create a fantastic craft today!